Friday, January 6, 2012

Long Long Long

(Coconut Palms, 2011)

Long, without looking at a dictionary is extensive, on-going, and sometimes appearing endless. When used for longing, the feeling which comes from a withdrawal of something pleasing and favorable. To miss is to long?

Belong, without looking at a dictionary is to be apart of, to be joined by something else and to be one element that is connected to another and be rightfully placed. When you remove "Be" from belong you have long and when you think of missing something, and missing something you felt you belong with, than that separated notion of "be-long" is now just long missing be.

Being, without looking at a dictionary is to exist as something, as simple as that you simply just are. To be or not to be. That really is the question.

So we have longing, belonging, and being. And in this context I understand this notion of longing, the lack of being and the lack of belonging. But to break down "long" even more it is a adjustive that describes distance and to long is to have distance from something and the idiom is what is associated with long distance is to notice the distance -to know your position to what you are comparing it to. And commonly it is act that comes from noticing something is lacking and missing. This thing whether far away physically or far away emotionally is baring some distance, long distance.

The top of the lower half of the building I live in is far from actually being a ship with a bridge that extends to an island but I cannot help but always think of it this way. Standing between the island and the ship I look up to a midnight sky and search for a moon. I find nothing but small points of bright light. These points aren't stars but man-made from construction sites high in the sky (the heavens) and passing airplanes. Above is a thick foggy cloud that is diluted and more milky than that of a nimbus cloud in consistency. Perhaps the moon is there in its imperfect fullness but this milky cloud doesn't have any concentrated illuminance and shows no sign of hiding anything but darkness and faintly glowing stars. And in this night it feels as if the moon simply does not exist where I am. Elsewhere and especially in places with little or none light population the moon is there, but here where I stand in-between an imaginary island and an imaginary ship it does not exists.

My memory remembers a time with a moon in the same location but it was of a different time that is clearly separated from this current moment. For some reason my memory holds the consistency of a dream in comparison to what is happening before me. And perhaps this moment feels more or less like the dream and the memory is the one that is real. And then I am caught between the two, what is real and what is not between a not ship and a not island and where a moon very much should be isn't but where my memory tells me it is.

I reach a point where I hear a voice telling me what the world is. I trust this voice and yet I know it isn't always right. But it is the most right thing I know and so it is I follow it as my primary understanding of the world around me. Usually I am not aware of its existence but right now in a quagmire I questioning it. And when you question your notion of reality and the constant voice of reason that exists within you the grounds that you stand on are not as solid as you think. And what is solid what is not and value itself from one thing to another and what the thing is and concept that makes a thing that particular thing are all rendered without color, density, mass, or reflection. They are all indiscernible and meaningless.

On longing to extend outwards and to bridge and yet never make it there and left in a quagmire that is neither being or not being and is simply is a state of missing. Where the moon should be is not and where my mind tells me is neither, my thoughts float up and take me with it to heights too high and frightening to look down. All because I can't place a moon in the midnight sky and all because I want to see it and perhaps it was the very thing ground this world to the next. I seem to have misplaced it somewhere. I long for it to return.

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About Me

My story is about trying to speak with my hands. Put a camera in front of them and I'll show you the places I've been to, put a typewriter in front of me and I'll tell you the people I have known, put a drum in front of me and I'll beat the rhythm of my heart. Over and over, until there is nothing left.